Orange panels on Pan Am wings?

[David M]

Does anyone know when, why and with what colour Pan Am began to paint the upper surface of their Clippers with orange panels?

Ditto the BOAC C Class boats?

Any an all advice will be appreciated...

DM in Oz

[Lazy8]

The purpose of the orange panels was to make the aircraft more visible to rescuers in the event of a force landing.

On 21 January 1939, Imperial Airways C-Class G-ADUU Cavalier force landed in the Atlantic due to carburettor icing.  The aircraft broke up and it was some time before the survivors were rescued (by a passing tanker).  As a result of this, Imperial decided that trans-oceanic aircraft should have bright panels on the top surfaces, following Pan Am's lead (Wikipedia will tell you Pan Am started painting the orange at this time too, which is not the case - but I think this incident did prompt them to start suggesting to subsidiaries like Panagra that the orange panels were a good idea...) .  So far as I can tell, only the two S.30 flight-refuelled C-Class boats actually carried the bright panels prewar - Cabot had red upper outer wings and tailplane; Caribou had a different shade, most likely orange - precise shades not recorded.  Published photos are almost always the "prettier" pictures taken during trials, before the coloured panels were painted.  Later on, some of the boats on the Horseshoe Route had red outer wings for the same reason - in this case the red was the same red as used in the tri-colour stripes below the registration letters, most likely the prewar roundel red.

I'm sure someone who knows more about Pan Am can fill in the earlier half of the story.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Lazy8

[72modeler]

As  Lazy8 stated, American flying boats had the upper wing panels painted with international orange, FS 12197. 

Mike

[David M]

Gentlemen,

Many thanks, very informative and helpful.

DM in Oz

[Roger Holden]

Pan Am's use of International Orange goes back to around 1929, on its Fokker Trimotors and Sikorsky S-38s.

 

Incidentally, International Orange was so named after its use by the International Harvester Co's agricultural machinery, not because of any wider connotation....